Paradise: Birds Fly at Sunrise

Chapter Three: *Chapter Title TBC

CHAPTER THREE: *Chapter Title TBC

            When I woke up in my bed to daylight, I was immediately irritated. Why had my alarm not woke me up? I looked at it.

 9:54.

It was unlike me to sleep in, even on a Saturday. Maybe I was just so tired that I’d slept right through it. Then I remembered my dream. I must have just been in a really deep sleep; my dream had seemed incredibly real, like when you’re sleeping really heavily.

            I sighed. At least it had been almost worth missing the sun. I remembered the boy, Kaston, and his strange powder, the way his skin glowed and his peculiar necklace. I raised my hand to my chest where it had rested against my skin. It was like I could still feel it there.

            And then my hand met the glass and I really could feel it there. I flung myself out of bed and ran to my mirror to examine it again. Sure enough, the cone-shaped necklace with the blue liquid was hanging from my neck by thin black rope. It hadn’t been a dream!

Then I saw myself in the mirror. Tatty pyjamas, hair completely tangled and frizzy, and looking completely gormless for having just woken up. I cringed a little for myself at how dreadful I must have looked in front of someone so gorgeous, which was unlike me. I didn’t usually care about stuff like that. But still, it was hard to believe he’d said he’d actually come back.

            Soon enough, he’d said. When was that? A few hours? Days? Weeks? I had no idea. But one thing was for sure: I was not letting this necklace out of my sight. I was curious to so many things; so much of what he’d said still didn’t make sense. How did he get there? And come to think of it, how did he leave? I started pacing, which I hate. It was a stupid and bad habit, but I couldn’t seem to stand still.

 I decided to just carry on with my day like nothing had happened, and maybe the time would go faster. I had no plans to leave the house, so I dressed in a t-shirt, then pulled on an old snugly jumper with a high, round collar and concealed the necklace beneath it. Then I pulled on jeans and tied my hair back in a simple ponytail before going downstairs.

            Pharaoh must have been sleeping or eating because he didn’t meet me at the stairs. I found him curled up on Freddie’s lap in the living room, purring. When I walked in, he glowered at me as if to say: and what time do you call this? I just stroked his head and he plucked his claws on Freddie’s jeans in contentment.

            I flopped on the couch next to them. Freddie is my stepbrother. He’s sixteen, loves music, and struts around with his guitar every minute of every day, ever since he realised that ‘chicks dig that.’ Even so, I liked that he played the guitar, because it had given us something to talk about when our parents first got together and things were a horribly awkward. I play too, so we taught each other songs and found that we liked some similar music. He could be such a cliché moody teenager, but I loved him to bits.

“How was the fancy up-town college?” I asked him.

“Stupid,” he said, fiddling with Pharaoh’s ears, and trying to turn them inside out. “When will Mum realise that I don’t want to go anywhere? I mean, sure, I’ll  move somewhere if I go to Uni, but college? Nah. No need.”

“She just wants you to do well.”

“She just wants me to move out.”

“We all want that Fred, you take up so much space. We could be using it for something worthwhile like... a pouffe or...a tropical fish tank. ” I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I said it and saw him grin before he lunged at me.